OSR News Roundup for January 12th, 2025

Welcome to the second News Roundup in a 2026 that has already felt about six months long. ZineMonth is three weeks away, and I've already collected some interviews to promote projects; if you're participating in this year's ZineMonth and want some promotion please get in touch with me and I'll send over some short interview questions.

The first thing I'd like to plug is the free zine released by the NSR Cauldron Discord server. To me, this Discord has some of the same energy as the heady days of Google +, and the server has just released their first free zine: Sword&.

• No Seat Belts has released Hobs -- Household and Familial Spirits for Cairn, a supplement that does pretty much what it says on the tin. It also features art by Perplexing Ruins, a Roundup favorite.

• Another release for Cairn is Heron Watch, an adventure exploring the ruins of a keep built by an order of knights inspired by early airplane pilots. The art is pretty stunning. This release is free for a couple of weeks, after which you'll have to pay for it.

• A Change is Coming is a charming solo, one page rpg about a very hungry caterpillar feasting on the nearby countryside in order to metamorphize into . . . something.

• I am not familiar with publisher Juggle Bubble, but I see they've just released You'll Meet the Devil at a Crossroads, a GMless story game for 1-6 players about making choices.

• Before they Were Heroes is a character sheet of 0-level PCs in OSE.

• Another OSE release is The Isle of Ruk and the Dungeon of Klinis, a small sandbox setting with three-level dungeon.

• Doogface has released On Axionic Wings, a pamphlet scenario for Mothership 1e, designed to be run as a one-shot or an encounter en route to other adventures.

• One of my favorite publishers is Lazy Litch, and they've just released a free preview of their upcoming release: Demidirge, a mind-bending adventure for Shadowdark.

• Christian Eichhorn has released CLVSTER, a sandbox adventure for Death in Space and CY_BORG, set in a haunted asteroid mining belt.

• Temple of the Rotting Priest is a short, one-shot adventure for OSE featuring a three-foot tall kobold in a ten gallon hat looking to hire the PCs to track down a stolen shipment.

• James Spahn of Barrel Rider Games has released The Devil's Due, a game of grimdark gothic heroes.

• The ever-prolific James Floyd Kelly has released two zines: Runes #8, focused on Shadowdark, and Delver #19, for OSE. Like all OSR products, the content is largely system agnostic, and can easily be adapted into other games.

• Kabuki Kaiser has released The Player's Bestiary, a reference for solo players to create an imaginary gaming group.

• Written for Dolmenwood, The Classic Kindred Collection presents the four classic kindreds -- dwarf, gnome, halfling, and half-elf -- adapted for Dolmenwood.

• Knight Owl Publishing is funding The Vanilla Adventure, an updated version of the original game that was released in 2017. Knight Owl has a great track record with their releases, and we stock a number of their titles in store.

• There are two days left in the Kickstarter for the BX Advanced Bestiary, Vol. 3, covering monsters L-R from the OSE Classic tome, with options and variants to add spice to your encounters.